Question

I’d like to use model binding to keep my controllers looking cleaner, you can see how much nicer it is using model binding:

public ActionResult Create(Person personToCreate)
{
    //Create person here
}

vs

public ActionResult Create(string firstName, string lastName, string address, string phoneNum, string email, string postalCode, string city, string province, string country)
{
    //Create person here
}

When doing model binding, we can just use a form with the correct names in the Html.TextBox("")

What about jquery? How can I make sure that when I do a $.post(url, data, callback, dataType) or a $.ajax(options) call to Create(Person personToCreate) that the Person object gets filled properly?

Answer 1

You need to:

1. Make the property names in data match the argument/property of bound type names.
2. Always supply a value for all non-nullable arguments/properties of bound type.

Number 2 is the big one in terms of why binding to person can behave differently than specifying individual action arguments for each property. If you have a type with a non-nullable property called “Foo”, then failing to supply a foo item in your form will prevent binding.